Miss Manners: Invitation has more questions than info

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I just received an invitation to a formal wedding. There was no response card; we are expected to write our own note.

To me, this is cheap; some people just won't respond. There was no "respond by" date, and we found out by word-of-mouth -- not on the invitation -- that it is a black-tie event. Who knew? Thank you for your response.

GENTLE READER: Wait -- you didn't send a response card. How do you expect Miss Manners to answer you?

Oddly enough, polite people who issued invitations always did expect the recipients to take the trouble of answering them, promptly and in their own handwriting. But polite people may have to deal with people like yourself, who are impolite enough to consider this expectation an outrageous imposition and ignore invitations, even those for events they plan to attend.

Stationers seized on the dismay of the hosts to suggest that the burden on recalcitrant guests could be eased if the hosts all but took over the job of answering the invitations, as well as issuing them. Thus, comparatively recently, the response card came into existence.

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Whoever designed it had a peculiar idea of what constitutes formality. To this day, people are baffled by the "M" followed by a fill-in-the-blank, put off by the harshness of "will/will not attend," and inspired by the leeway that seems to be implied in "number attending."

More to the point, the response card did not solve the problem. In increasing numbers, prospective guests were not acknowledging invitations.

So the deadline was added, in the hope that it would signal that the need for a response was serious. Even that did not jolt those who lacked the sense and courtesy to respond. Miss Manners hears daily from frustrated hosts who cannot know how many guests they will have.

And now you have turned nasty because the crutches for guests, which you take as an entitlement, were not offered.

But yes, that invitation should have indicated "black tie" if that was what was intended. Once, it was assumed that evening clothes were required for a formal event in the evening, but even Miss Manners admits that this can no longer be taken for granted.

DEAR MISS MANNERS: I'm a 27-year-old woman, and I have difficulty meeting men (I rarely get to go out to bars/clubs, as most of my friends have children). On the rare occasion I do meet someone, something always goes wrong, and that gets me down.

A few times lately I've been asked, "Have you ever thought about having kids?" which I find pretty insensitive. If I'd met the right man, I probably would've had children. What's the best response without coming across as rude?

GENTLE READER: "It's not anything I'm thinking about doing tonight."

DEAR MISS MANNERS: Is it inappropriate for a man to refer to a waitress as "Honey" or "Hon"?